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The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office of the U.S. Department of Defense issued this case resolution on February 6, 2025, with a technical appendix, on the "Go Fast" video recorded by a U.S. Navy F/A-18F FLIR sensor off Florida in January 2015. Working from the public 34-second video, AARO puts the object at about 13,000 feet, moving roughly 5 to 92 mph once wind is accounted for. It concludes with high confidence that the object showed no anomalous performance and that its apparent speed came from motion parallax.
UNCLASSIFIED 13 UNCLASSIFIED = √(4,510 − 4,251)2 + (−4,941 − (−4,890))2 + (3,612 − 3,591)2 (13𝑏) = √67,081 + 2,601 + 441 = 265 𝑚 (13𝑐) Dividing this distance by the 13 seconds elapsed between t1 and t2 gave an estimated speed of about 20 m/s or 45 mph. The heading of the UAP, φUAP, was also calculated from the Δx and Δy components of the locations. 𝜑𝑈𝐴𝑃 = tan−1 (Δ𝑦 Δ𝑥) = tan−1 ((−4,890 − (−4,941)) (4,251 − 4,510) ) = −11.14° (14) The UAP heading is forward along the +x-axis and slightly in the negative y direction, moving in the same general direction as the F/A-18 (-9.6°) but about 9 times slower. As a reminder, all depicted locations and directions are relative to the defined coordinate system. Referencing directions such as North, South, East, and West cannot be done without knowledge of the location or heading of the F/A-18. Estimating the UAP Path of Travel The previous sections explained the methodology used to calculate the positions of the UAP at the two endpoints of the time interval, t1 and t2. The resulting speed and relative heading assumed the UAP travelled in a mostly straight, direct path between these two points. The same mathematical approach was then applied to every frame of the thirteen-second video to estimate the continuous path of the UAP from the first to last points. This calculation required an estimate of the time, sensor azimuth and elevation, range to target, and the F/A-18 location for all frames in the period. The metadata did provide relative frame times, with 0.033 seconds elapsing between frames in the 30 Hz video. Path of the F/A-18 The F/A-18’s altitude, bank angle, and airspeed remained constant between t1 and t2. Therefore, the radius of the curvature of its flight path remained constant from (6). The distance traveled at each point in time was the elapsed frame time multiplied by the speed. Location and yaw were then calculated using the previously describe methods. Path of the UAP The sensor azimuth, sensor elevation, and range to the object were changing during the video. The sensor’s display indicated these changes in integers so that many frames would pass before a value was incremented or decremented. More accurate estimates were made by noting the frames and times when a quantity incremented or decremented. For example, in the frame that a
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